today homeland security security jeh johnson will lead a panel that range from terror attacks to natural disasters. joining secretary johnson will be past and present governors and mayors. live coverage starting at 2:00 p.m. here on c-span3. today republican presidential candidate senator ted cruz from texas will speak at a campaign rally in las vegas ahead of a tuesday night republican caucuses. our live road to the white house caucuses starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern over on c-span. tonight on the communicators, gordon smith, president and ceo

of the national association of broadcasters discusses his concerns with fcc's chair tom wheeler's proposals and joined by communications editor monty taylor. chairman wheeler if nothing else and he is to his great credit the fostering competition and he's looking at one of the real cost centers in the paid television industry so i understand why he's doing that. i suppose as a consumer myself taking out my broadcaster hat i'm saying who is the new gatekeeper? is it amazon? is it google? i don't know, and if it's one of those the question i have is right now, and we have tough negotiations with directv and satellite or dish or with comcast and cable, time warner, you name it. those retransmission consent

negotiations are happening all of the time and 99.9% of them end without any difficulty at all, but they're paying for the content, so if it goes to a new set-top box with a different gatekeeper, i guess, putting my broadcast hat back on is hey, how about my copyrighted material and are they going to sell all of that? if so, do they not have responsibility for what they will then take from broadcasters for nothing. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. every election cycle we're reminded how important it is for citizens to be informed and to me c-span is home for political junkies and a way to track the government for what happened. >> it's a way for us to stay informed. there are fans on the hill and my colleagues will say i saw you on c-span.

>> there's so much more that c-span does to make sure that people outside the beltway know what's going on inside it. >> homeland security secretary jeh johnson delivered the annual state of homeland security address on last year's progress and goals for this year. this program is an hour. [ applause ] >> i'm not used to the applause. i want to thank walter isakson for bringing the dignity toe the center. good evening, everyone. i'm jane harmon, the president and ceo of the wilson center, and i want to take a moment to recognize all my colleagues from the aspen institute's homeland security advisory council especially my co-chair, michael

chertoff. in the middle there he's homeland number two and here's a list of other dignitaries. let me first recognize my colleagues for that committee and we have the director of the program and charlie allen of the chertoff group, formerly of very senior intelligence posts. p.g. crowley, raj day, mike hayden and another of the luminaries from the intel world now with the chertoff group. david heyman, jim loy, christian marrone and we call him homeland number four. paul mcheal, former member of congress and the senior posted d.o.d. and mike morel, deputy cia director and now with the global strategies and eric olson, former head of major

agency, intel agency at the pentagon. vale oxford, former tsa administrator and judge bill webster who has done every important job in government brilliantly and also i want to recognize dr. susan demarco who is jeh johnson's wife and the superior member of the johnson household. ali mallorcas deputy secretary of the homeland department and suzanne spalding for cyber and infrastructure and the former member of team harmon on capitol hill and peter nefinger who is the current tsa administrator and senior coast guard official. this is secretary jeh johnson's third tour at the wilson center. it's like a rock band. we're thinking of getting him a smithsonian badge, and it means a great deal to me personally

'ç he's made his state of homeland security address an annual wilson center tradition. when i saw him a few nights ago he mentioned that his draft for this year's speech had hit 6,600 words up from 4,000 last year. so we'll be passing around pillows and blankets. settle in, folks. as some of you know i was one of the god mothers of the department of homeland security. so let me offer a few insights before jeh begins. as many of you know, dhs and i think most of you know the painful history and dhs was cobbled together in 2002 out of 22 agencies and just about every cabinet department kicked in a bureau or two whether it was d.o.e., dod, justice, and evening a culture and that department had to report, still does, to a whole slew of congressional oversight committee in one of the most complicated mazes i've ever

seen. it's a game of where's waldo. faced with a reporting structure from hell, the focus dhs has brought to its mission is impressive. it's certainly more focused than congress is. in large part, that's a credit to jeh who brings incredible skills to his gig as the department's fourth secretary. he and michael chertoff, as i mentioned secretary number two helped make dhs a manageable organization. and while the poll of workplace satisfaction still aren't sterling, the improvements have been significant and because no good deed goes unpunished, jeh's getting handed new and urgent responsibilities such as countering violent extremism on social media. coordinating the effort to protect critical infrastructure and private sector networks, an effort now led by suzanne spalding whom i just introduced. these are incredibly tough

tasks, but to paraphrase the late great jack valenti, i sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently because jeh is at the helm of the homeland department. jeh can probably tell you exactly how many hours and minutes he has left before he gets to retire. his wife susan will kill me if i suggest he stay any longer than he has to, but it's a fact that homeland secretary number five will have big shoes to fill. so it's an honor to welcome a dear friend, secretary of homeland security jeh johnson back to the wilson center. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> jane, thank you very much. i want to say welcome to the many distinguished guests and the senior leaders and the components of the department of

homeland security who are here, secretary chertoff, judge webster, members of the aspen group, members of the press, dr. demarco and her sister carol o'hare who is visiting from connecticut and my niecelie and most of all, sarah harrison who has control of my slides. >> oh. >> good morning, everyone. >> thank you, jane and the wilson center for hosting me again for this annual ritual. jane is a terrific supporter of our department and our homeland security mission and a voice of strength and common sense in this town. jane, for the third year in a row i continue to appreciate your leadership and mentorship. thank you. >> today i will outline the

progress we made in 2015 and the goals the president and i have for the department of homeland security in 2016. in the remaining 344 days there is much to do and i intend to make every day count. the former president of my alma mater, morehouse college used to tell his students, we only have just a minute, but eternity is in it and it's up to us to use it. with deputy secretary mallorcas as my partner, we will push an aggressive agenda to the end. i begin these remarks with a shout out to the men and women of dhs led by the terrific component heads seated before me. it's the nature of our business in homeland security that no news is good news, but no news is very often the product of the hard work and extraordinary, courageous effort our people put in every day to keep the

american public safe. last fiscal year, for example, tsa screened 695 million passengers, 3 million more than the year before. screened 450 million pieces of checked luggage, the highest in six years and at the same time seized a record number 2500 firearms from carry-on luggage, 84% of which were loaded. last fiscal year, cbp screened 26.3 million containers, 11.3 million commercial trucks. 1 million commercial and private aircraft. 436,000 busses, ferries and trains and 103 million private vehicles and 382 million travelers at land, marine and airports of entry to the united states. at the same time, cbp collected nearly $46 billion in duties, taxes and fees making it the second largest revenue collector

in the u.s. government. last fiscal year, hsi made a record high 33,000 criminal arrests including 3500 alleged members of transnational criminal gangs and 2400 alleged child predators. last fiscal year, the coast guard saved over 3500 lives and seized 319,000 pounds of cocaine, 78,000 pounds of marijuana worth total of 4.3 billion wholesale. in just one mission off the coast of central and south america the national security cutter stratton alone seized over 1 billion in cocaine along with two drug cartel-owned submersibles. last year the secret service successfully orchestrated what may have been the largest domestic security operation in the history of this country by providing physical security to

160 world leaders at the u.n. general assembly and at the same time providing security for pope francis as he visited new york, washington and philadelphia. last year fema provided over 6 billion in federal disaster assistance and was there to help communities recovering from flooding in texas and south carolina. tornadoes in oklahoma and typhoons in the western pacific. this past sunday does, hs personnel from the secret service hsa, fema, ina and nppd, the coast guard and other components led the federal effort to provide ground, air, maritime and cybersecurity for super bowl 50. then there are the individual acts of good and heroic work by our people to save lives and go above and beyond the call of duty. in late december, nine border patrol agents traveled miles on

foot or by horseback to come to the aid of an arizona rancher who had fallen off her horse in a remote mountainous area. last march, two uniformed secret service officers helped save the life of a journalist who suffered a heart attack in the east room of the white house. last july, coast guard petty officer darren harrety swam nearly a mile at night in 57-degree water and 30-mile-per-hour winds to save the lives of four stranded fishermen. finally, we honor those killed in the line of duty. hsi agent scott mcgwire was killed last month by a hit and run driver in miami. i was glad to at least have had the opportunity to visit with scott's wife and 5-year-old son and hold scott's hand before he was officially declared brain dead. his funeral was ten days ago in new orleans. our people do extraordinary work

every day to protect the homeland. please consider thanking a tso, a coastie, a customs officer or a border agent next time you see one. though our people do extraordinary work, i know we must improve the manner in which the department conducts business. like last year, reforming the way in which the department of homeland security functions to more effectively and efficiently deliver our services to the american people is my new year's resolution for 2016. we've done a lot in the last two years, but under the leadership of our undersecretary for management, russ di oshgs there is still much we will do. my overarching goal is secretary this last year is to continue to protect the homeland and leave the department of homeland security a better place than i found it. the centerpiece of our

management reform has been the unity of effort initiative announced in april 2014 which focuses on getting away from the stovepipes in favor of more centralized programming, budgeting and acquisition processes. we have transformed our approach to the budget. today we focus departmentwide on our mission needs rather than through component stove pipes. with the support of congress we are moving to a simplified budget structure in which line-items mean the same across all components. we've transformed our approach to acquisition. last year i established a dhs-wide joint requirements council to evaluate from the viewpoint of the department as a whole. our component's needs on the front end of an acquisition. we have launched the acquisition innovations in motion initiative to consult with the contractor community about ways to improve

the quality and timeliness of our contracting process and the emerging skills required of our acquisition professionals. we are putting faster contracting processes in place. we are reforming our hr process. we are making the hiring process fafrter and more efficient. we're using all of the crews we have to reward, retain personnel. as part of the initiative in 2014, we created the joint task forces dedicated to border security along the southern border. once again, we're getting away from the stove pipes. in 2015, these task forces became fully operational. in 2016 we're asking congress to officially authorize them in legislation. we're achieving more transparency in our operations. we've stepped up our office of immigration statistics and gave them the mandate to mandate immigration data across the

department. last year and for the second year in a row, we reported our total number repatriations, returns and removals on a consolidated departmentwide basis. the long-awaited entry/exit overstay report was published in january providing a clearer picture of the nba of individuals in this country who overstay their visitor visas. it reflects that about 1% of those that enter this country by air or through the visa waver program will stay. we are working with outside border expertses to develop a clear and comprehensive set. the apprehension rates ands inflow rates impeach since 2013, we spearhead something called the dhs framework initiative for

the program we are having troubled information against this, ask we'll protect privacy and civil liberties. as we have proposed to congress i want to restructure the national protection and programs directorate from a headquarters element to an operational component called the cyber and infrastructure protection agency. i'm very pleased that the 2016 dhs budget adopted by congress and signed by the president is part of our omnibus, and i'm very pleased with that. it funds the completion of the main building of the new dhs headquarters at st. elizabeth's campus in southeast washington. i will never get to work there, but perhaps -- >> or to be admitted.

but perhaps they will name a courtyard or conference room after me. the president's budget request for 2017 released two days ago, funds our key priorities to include safe yagz security, the secret service and recapitalization of the coast guard and provides a huge increase in funding for cybersecurity. finally, we will improve the levels of employee satisfaction across the department. we've been on an aggressive campaign to improve morale over the last two years. it takes time to turn a 22-component workforce of 240,000 people in a different direction. though the overall results last year were still disappointing and we see signs of improvement. employee satisfaction improved in a number of components including at dhs headquarters. this year we will see an improvement in employee satisfaction across dhs. in 2016, counter terrorism will remain the cornerstone of the

department of homeland security's mission. the events of 2015 reinforce this as i've said many times we are in a new phase in the global terrorist threat regarding a whole new type of response. we have moved from a world of terrorist-directed attacks to the world that includes the threat of terrorist-inspired attacks in which the terrorists may have never come face to face with a single member of a terrorist organization. lives among us in the homeland and self-radicalizes inspired by something on the internet. by their nature, terrorist-inspired attacks are harder to detect by our intelligence and law enforcement communities. could occur with little or no notice and in general, makes for a very complex homeland security challenge. so what are we doing about this? first, our government, along with our coalition partners continues to take the fight

militarily to terrorist organizations overseas. isil is the terrorist organization most prominent on the world stage. since september 2014, air strikes and special operations have, in fact, led to the death of a number of isil's leaders and those focused on plotting external attacks in the west. at the same time, isil has lost 40% of the populated areas it once controlled in iraq and thousands of square miles of territory it once controlled in syria. on the law enforcement side, the fbi continues to do an excellent job of detecting, investigating, preventing and prosecuting terrorist plots here in the homeland. as for the department of homeland security, following the attacks in ottawa, canada in 2014 and reaction to terrorist groups' public calls for attacks on government installations in the western world. i directed our federal

protective service to enhance its presence and security at various u.s. government buildings around the country. given the prospect of the terrorist-inspired attack in the homeland, we have intensified our work with the state and local law enforcement, almost every day dhs shares information with certains and local police chiefs and sheriffs and fy-15 we provided over 2 billion in homeland security assistance to state and local governments around the country for things such as active shooter training exercises and over time for cops and firefighters, salaries for emergency managers, emergency vehicles and communications and surveillance equipment. we helped to fund an active shooter training exercise that took place in the new york city subways last november and a series of these exercises just last weekend in miami, florida. as i said at a graduation

ceremony for 1200 new cops in new york city in december. given the current threaten viernment it is the cop on the beat who may be the first to detect the next terrorist attack in the united states. we are enhancing information sharing with organizations that represent businesses, colleges and professional sports, faith-based organizations and critical infrastructure. we're enhancing measures to detect and prevent travel to their country by foreign terrorist fighters and we're strengthening our visa waiver program which permits travelers to come here without a visa. in 2014, we begin to collect more personal information in the electronic system for travel authorization also known as the esta system, and as a result of these enhancements, over 3,000 additional travelers were denied travel here in fy-15.

in august 2015, we introduced further security enhancements to the visa waiver program. through the passage in december of the visa waiver program improvement and terrorist travel prevention act of 2015, congress has codified into law several of these security enhancements and placed new restrictions on eligibility for travel to the u.s. without a visa. we began to enforce these new restrictions on january 21st. waivers from these restrictions will only be granted on a case by case basis. when it is in the law enforcement or national security interest of the united states to do so. those denied entry under the visa waiver program as a result of this new law may still apply for the visa to travel to the u.s. we are expanding the department's use of social media for various purposes. today social media is used for

33 operational and investigative purposes within dhs. beginning in 2014, we launched four pilot programs that involved consulting social media of applicants for certain immigration benefits and uscis now also reviews the social media of syrian refugee applicants referred for enhanced betting. based upon the recent recommendation of the social media task force within dhs. i have determined that we must expand the use of social media even further consistent with law. cbp is deploying our customs personnel at various airports abroad to pre-clear air travelers before they get on flights to the united states. at present, we have this pre-clearance capability, at 15 airports overseas and last year, through pre-clearance, we denied boarding to over 10,700 travelers or 29 per day seeking to enter the united states.

as i sat her last year, we want to build more of these. i announced ten additional airports that we prioritized for preclearance. congress and others have urged us to develop a system of exit and that is to take the fingerprints of other biometric data. cbp has begun technologies that can be deployed for this nationwide with the passage of the omni bus bill and congress has authorized 1 billion over a period of ten years for the implementation of biometric exit. i have directed cbp begin implementing this system in 2018. i announced the schedule of the final two faces of implementation of the real i.d. law which goes into effect two

and then four years from now. at present, 23 states are compliant with this law. 27 have extensions and six states and territories are out of compliance. you voted for this law, right, jane? now that the final timetable for implementation of this law is in place and we will urge all states for the good of the residence it start issuing real i.d.-compliant lienses as soon as possible. in the current threaten viernment there is a role for the public, too. if you see something, say something must be more than a slogan. we continue to stress this. dhs has now established partnerships with the nfl, major league baseball and nascar to raise public awareness at sporting events and an informed and vigilant public contributes to national security. in december we reformed ntas, the national terrorism advisory

system and we replaced the color-coded alerts with ntas and the problem was we never used it. it consisted of two types of alert, elevated and imminent and depended on the presence of a known, specific and credible threat. this does not work in the current environment which includes the threat of homegrown, self-radicalized terrorist-inspired attacks. >> so in december we added a new form of advisory and the ntas bulletin to the existing alerts. the bulletin we issued in december advises the public of the current threaten viernment and how the public can help. >> finally, given the nature of the evolving terrorist threat, building bridges to diverse communities has become a homeland security imperative. well-informed families and communities are the best defense against terrorist ideologies. al qaeda and the islamic state are targeting muslim communities

in this country. we must respond. in my view, this is as important as any of our other homeland security missions. in 2015, we took these efforts to new levels. we created the dhs office of community partnerships headed by george saline. they're now the central hub of the department's, forts to counter violent extremism in this country and the league for the new inner agency cbe task force that includes dhs, doj and the fbi, nctc and other agencies. we're taking aggressive steps to improve aviation and airport security. the traveling public should be aware of that. because of this an increased traveler volume. overall wait times have increased somewhat at airports, but we believe this is necessary for the public's own safety. since 2014, we have enhanced

security at overseas last point of departure airports and a number of foreign governments have replicated these enhancements. certain classified dhs inspector general's screening at airports reflected a dismal fail rate and was leaked to the press. a directioned a ten-point problem that fixed it under the general. tsa has aggressively immrplemend this plan. this has included back to basics retraining of the entire tso force and increased use of random exposed trace detectors and testing and reevaluating the screening equipment that was the subject of the i.g.'s test and a rewrite of the standard operating procedures manual and increased manual screening and less managed inclusion? these measures were immremed on or ahead of schedule and we were

focused on airport security. in april of last year, tsa issued guidelines to domestic airports to reduce access to secure areas to require that all airport and airline personnel pass through tsa screening if they board a flight to conduct more frequent screening of airport and airline personnel and to conduct criminal background checks of airport and airline personnel. since then, employee access points have been reduced and random screening of personnel within secure areas has increased fourfold. we are continuing these efforts in 2016 and two years ago they further enhanced the screening of aviation workers in the secure area of the airports. counter terrorism remains a cornerstone of our department's mission and i haven't concluded that cybersecurity must be another. making tangible improvement to our nation's cybersecurity is a

top priority for me and president obama before we leave office. two days ago the president announced a cybersecurity national action plan and the culmination of effort by his administration and the plan includes a call for the creation of a commission on enhancing national cybersecurity. additional investments in technology and the cybersecurity and cyber education and new cyber talent in the federal workforce and improved cyber incident response. dhs has a role in almost every aspect of the plan. as reflected in the president's 2017 budget request we want to expand our cyber response teams from 10 to 48. we were doubling the number of cybersecurity advisers to in effect, make house calls to assist private sector organizations with in-person, customized cybersecurity assessments and best practices and building on dhs' stop,

think, connect campaign and we will help promote public awareness on multi-factor authentication. we will collaborate with underwriters, laboratory and others to develop a cybersecurity assurance program to certify network's devices within the internet of things such as your home alarm system and your refrigerator or even your pacemaker. last year we greatly expanded the capability of dhs's national cybersecurity communications' integration center or nkick. it increased its distribution of information and the number of vulnerability assessments conducted and the number of incident responses. at the nkick this last year we built a system to have the nearby cyber threat indicators and we built this in a way that also includes privacy protections. we did this ahead of schedule. i have issued an aggressive timetable for improving federal civilian cybersecurity,

principally through two dhs programs. the first is called einstein. einstein one and two have the ability to detect and monitor cybersecurity threats in our federal civilian systems and are now in place across all civilian departments and agencies. einstein 3a is the newest iteration of this system and has the ability to actually block, potential cyber attacks on our federal systems. thus far, e3a has blocked 700,000 cyber threats and we are rapidly expanding this capability. about a year ago, e3a covered only 20% of our federal civilian networks in the wake of the opm attack in may of last year, i directed our cybersecurity team to make at least some aspects of e3a available to all federal departments and agencies by the end of last year. they met that deadline. now the system is available to

everyone, 50% are actually online including opm and we are working to get all federal departments and agencies onboard by the end of this year. the second program called continuous diagnostics and mitigation helps agencies detect and prioritize vulnerabilities in their networks. in 2015, we provided cdm sensors to 97% of the federal civilian government. next year, dhs will provide the second phase of cdm to 100% of the federal civilian government. we have worked with omb and dn ito identify the government's high-value systems and we're working aggressively with the owners of these systems to increase their security. in september, dhs awarded a grant to the university of texas san antonio to work with industry to identify a common set of best practices for the development of information sharing and analysis

organizations or isaos. finally, i thank congress for passing the cybersecurity act of 2015. this new law is a huge assist to dhs and our cybersecurity mission and we're in the process of implementing this new law now. turning to immigration and border security, as i explained it to both democrats and republicans, immigration policy must be two sides of the same coin. the resources we have to enforce immigration laws are finite and they must be used wisely. this is true of every aspect of law enforcement. it's referred to as prosecutorial discretion. with the immigration enforcement resources we have, isis focused more sharply on public safety and border security. those who are convicted of serious crimes or who are apprehended at the border are top priorities for removal and we will enforce the law in

accordance with these priorities. accordingly, over the last several years, deportations by i.c.e. have gone down, but an increasing percentage of those deported are convicted criminals and an increased percentage of those in immigration detention around 85% are in the top priority for removal. we will continue to focus our resources on the most significant threats to public safety and border security. in furtherance of our public safety efforts in 2014 we did away with the controversial, secure communities program and replaced it with the new priority enforcement program or pep. pep fixes the political and legal controversies in my judgment associated with secure communities and enables us to take directly into custody from local law enforcement the most dangerous, removable criminals and since pep was created, cities and counties that

previously refused to work with secure communities are coming back to the table. of the 25 largest counties that refused to work with i.c.e. before, 16 are now participating in pep. in 2016, you want to get more to participate and because we are asking i.c.e. immigration enforcement officers to focus on convicted criminals and do a job that's more in line with law enforcement, last year, we reformed their pay scale accordingly. now these immigration officers are paid on the same scale as the rest of federal law enforcement. we've also prioritized the removal of those apprehended at the board or. we cannot allow our ared boers to be open to illegal migration. over the last 15 years, our nation across multiple administrations has invested a lot in border security and this investment has yielded positive results. apprehensions which are an

indicator of total attempts to cross the border illegally are a fraction of what they used to be. in 2014, overall apprehensions increased as we saw a spike of a number of families and una unaccompanied children of central america. that year the overall number of apprehensions was 479,000. across the government, we responded aggressively to this surge and the numbers fell sharply within a short period of time and fy-15, the number of those apprehended on the southwest border was 331,000 with the exception of one year. this was the lowest number since 1972. from july to december 2015 the number of migrants from central america began to climb again. in january, i announced a series of focused enforcement actions to take into custody and remove those who have been apprehended at the border in 2014 or later

and then ordered removed by an immigration court i know this made a lot of people i respect unhappy, but as i said, we must respect the law in accordance with our priorities and enforce it. in january, overall apprehensions on the southwest border dropped 36% from the month before. at the same time the number of unaccompanied children apprehended dropped 54% and the number of those in families dropped 64%. so far in february the numbers have remained at this decreased level. this six-week decline is encouraging, but it does not mean that we can dial back our efforts. we will continue to enforce the law consist went our priorities for enforcement which includes those apprehended at the border in 2014 or later. then there was the other side of the coin. the new enforcement policy the president and i announced in november 2014 makes clear that

our limited resources will not be focused on the removal of those who have committed no serious crimes, have been in this country for years and have families here. under our new policy, these people are not priorities for removal nor should they be. in fact, the president and i want to offer to those who have lived here for at least five years, are parents of u.s. citizens and who have committed no serious crimes, the opportunity to request deferred action on a case by case basis to come out of the shadows, get on the books and be held accountable. we are pleased that the supreme court has agreed to hear the case of texas versus the united states which involves the new deferred action policies we announced in november 2014. our immigration enforcement priorities and the ending of secure communities and the new deferred action policy now in the courts are among ten executive actions the president and i announced in november

2014, to fix our broken immigration system. we've also issued a proposed rule to expand eligibility for provisual extreme hardship waivers to all americans who statutorily apply for waivers and we are issuing the final rule on provisional waivers. we published new public comment on the extreme hardship requirement and the comment period is closed and we plan to issue final guidance on extreme hardship very soon. we're about to publish a final rule to strengthen the program that provides optional practical training for students in s.t.e.m. fields studying in u.s. universities. we have a new rule that allows spouses of h 1 b workers here in the united states under h-4 visas to apply for work authorization. we're working with the department of labor and other agencies to ensure for the

protection of workers the consistent enforcement of federal labor employment and immigration laws. we're promoting and increasing access to citizenship through the new white house task force on new americans. the week of september 14 to 21, we celebrated the stand stronger commit to citizenship campaign. in that one week, uscis, mat naturalized 40,000 people. we now permit credit cards as a payment option for naturalization fees. our overall policy is to focus our immigration resources more effectively on threats to public safety and border security, and within our existing legal authority do as much as we can to fix the broken immigration system. . we're disappointed that congress has not been our partner in this effort by passing comprehensive immigration reform legislation. finally, we recognize that more

border security and deportations may deter illegal migration, but they do not -- they do nothing to overcome the push factors that prompt desperate people to flee central america in the first place. . we're preparing to offer fleeing individuals a safe and legal alternative path to a better life. we're expanding our refugee admissions program to help vulnerable men, women and children in central america who qualify as refugees. we are partnering with the u.n. high commissioner for refugees on non-governmental organizations in the region to do this as soon as possible. this approach builds on our recently-established central american minors program which is a processing children with present parents in the united states. we're doing our part to address the syrian refugee crisis.

uncis in conjunction with the department of state is working hard to meet our commitment to admit at least 10,000 syrian refugees by the end of the year. we will do this carefullien skroog refugees in a multi-layered and intense screening process involving multiple law enforcement, national security and intelligence agencies across the federal government. over the last year, director joe clancy of the secret service has done a tremendous job reforming his agency including hiring a chief operation -- a chief operating officer from outside the secret service, altering the structure and management of the agency and ramping up efforts to hire new members of its workforce and expanding training opportunities. in 2016, we will continue to work on areas that still need improvement. with the help of congress in 2016, we will continue to rebuild the coast guard fleet. this year, congress has provided

funding for a ninth national security cutter, design funding for the offshore patrol cutter and funding to continue production of our fast response cutter. as reflected in the president's 2017 budget request, we'll also seek 150 million for the design of the new heavy ice breaker in recognition of the commercial activity in the arctic. since 2012, our federal law enforcement training center has trained more than a quarter million federal state and local officers and agents. at the same time fletc continues to update the curriculum face being law enforcement for continued training for active shooter situations, in forensics and human trafficking. fema will continue to do its extraordinary job of supporting the american people in communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from various disasters.

peopleal continue to focus on efforts to enhance resilience and mitigation measures before disaster strikes to prevent loss and save lives. we continue to promost lawful trade and travel. we will continue to pursue the president's u.s.-mexico high-level economic dialogue and is beyond the border initiative with canada. we're implementing the single window which by december 2016 will enable the private sector to use one portal to transmit information to 47 government agencies about exports and imports, thereby eliminating over 200 different forms and streamlining the trade process. . last week the secretary of commerce and i joined the president of mexico to open a new six-lane bridge near el paso that will replace a 78-year-old two-lane one. next week, i will join the mexican secretary of finance to inaugurate a pre-inspection

pilot in laredo, texas. in conclusion, a cording to "time" magazine i have, quote, probably the hardest job in america. that's not true. the president has the hardest job in america, but i am a rank in the top ten. i have a lot of challenges, a lot of problem, and a lot of headaches there is also far too much partisanship in washington and especially during an election year. politics has become a blood sport in this town. too often it is more important to score points than achieve smart, sound, government policy on behalf of the american people. through it all i still love public service, and i am dedicated to serving the american people, protecting our homeland and serving our president. i find inspiration in the amazing stories of our workforce

they told you about in the beginning of this speech. i also find inspiration and strength in the batch of letters from the american people we serve particularly from the school kids. here's one from a young man named brett shepherd. handwritten in pencil. to jeh johnson, i just wanted to say i think you're doing a good job. [ laughter ] i ran for class president in my government class. i ended up becoming the secretary of homeland security. [ laughter ] >> which, honestly, i would rather be. president is not all it's cracked up to be. [ laughter ] like brett, at this moment the life of our nation, there's nothing i'd rather be than secretary of homeland security. it is and always will be the highlight of my professional life.

in the time left to me in office i pledge all my energy to continue to protect the homeland and leave the department of homeland security a better place than i found it. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> look at that. [ applause ] well, jeh, thank you for the longest and best received address in my tenure at the wilson center, and the conclusion, and to all who work in the department, thank you for your service and a late introduction to the newly minted principal deputy undersecretary for intelligence and analysis. over in the corner, david granis who was former chief of staff to

the committee and more importantly than that, a former member of team harmon. time is short. yes, you can applaud that. the bestr the first one was an egyptian airliner that blew up and crashed over the sinai and the second one was in somalia just a week or so ago and it looked like, and i think we think an

airport employee, in fact, we have video that helped an al shabaab suicide bomber bring a computer onboard that was, in fact, a bomb. he died. everyone else survived, miraculously. so my question is you address the issue of airport security, but what additional details can you give us about how intensely you are focused on the issue of airport employee, catering and others bringing bombs on airplanes? >> well, the good news is we have a very proactive tsa administrator in pete nefinger, and i think a very proactive secretary of homeland security when it comes to aviation and airport security. we are focused on airport security as i said in my prepared remarks and we reduced domestically the number of access points, more continuous

screening of airline and airport personnel and just two days ago, tsa issued further guidelines to build on that. right after the crash of metrojet 9268 we, within a couple of days put in place further security enhancements at certain airports in the region. i want to identify precisely which ones. around things brought on airplanes we sent inspectors to these airports and not just the specific one, but a number of them in the region. i'm always concerned about not just responding to the last event, but the potential future event which is not going to be identical to the last event and so we're doing all of this and we are focused and we're considering more that we should be doing with respect to

overseas airports. we have the ability through airlines, through our relationship with other countries to put out guidelines that influence the behavior of airport authorities and airport security at overseas airports. in particular, last point of departure airports and those are mostly in europe, some are in the middle east and we regulate those pretty carefully and the security at our last point of departure airports is pretty good. as i said in my prepared remarks i want to send the customs officers on the front end of the flights and that's what referred to as pre-clearance and where we have this set up it's been very, very effective. but the overall point here is that in anything we do in aviation security and airport security, you've got to strike the right balance between the appropriate level of physical security and not overburdening the american public and as i

said in my remarks, because of the enhancements we've imposed over the last six, nine months. wait times have gotten longer, but i think the american public understands that and appreciates that. >> michael chertoff, we have a mike coming. >> first, let me say secretary johnson, great talk and a great survey of what's been going on and what's to come. i know director clapper recently testified that there may be more violent jihad is now in the world than there have been at any previous time and also, we've begun to see in san bernardino and paris what i sometimes call crowd source of terrorism and people who are not necessarily trained in country, but are inspired and trained over the internet to carry out attacks and those are generally low signature and it's not quite

as easy to detect as a large plot. >> and i wanted to hear if you could expand a little bit on what we're doing with state and local government and law enforcement and with the private sector to help them deal with d model where we may not have catastrophic terrorist attacks but we may have multiple level attacks in various places, sequentially or at the same time. >> first of all, i'm very proud of the fact that mike and i, for if the good of homeland security, have struck a very good bipartisan relationship. last year at exactly this time when we were trying to get funding for our department and we were looking at a government shutdown of our department, mike and tom ridge stood with me at an event where we highlighted the need to keep funding homeland security for the american people. so i really do appreciate, mike,

the bipartisan relationship and friendship that we have. that's one. the terrorist-inspired actor makes for a more complex homeland security challenge. and it is very difficult to identify this city over that city that could be at risk of an attack from a terrorist-inspired actor. so as you know, through our grant making, we provide a lot of assistance to state and local law enforcement. we provide state level grants. we provide urban area security initiative grants. urban area grants which we'll be announcing in the next couple of days for 2016. and as i see this threat evolve, i think our relationships and our grants to state and local law enforcement are becoming more and more important.

i have made a point -- i just saw that in the graphic -- of highlighting active shooter training. active shooter training works. i've seen it work. i've seen videos of our very own person until responding to an event and responding on impulse with what to tell the public. and when you ask them, why did you respond so quickly, they'll say we had active shooter training. so i know the value of it and i've been making a point of highlighting it, which is why i went to the new york city event, which is why i went to the miami event last weekend and i'll be doing more of this. when i spoke to the major county sheriffs yesterday, i said, if you're not doing active shooter training, you need to be. and the key to active shooter training is very often because of the rapid response it is going to be multi-jurisdictional and multi-disciplined. and so in the miami training

last weekend, for example, you had a collection of police forces, first responders, who were all converging on an event at a particular moment and we need to do more of that training and we need to support that kind of training. of course you know about our cve. it is almost always the case that when somebody self-radicalizes, there was somebody in a position to know about it. and the more we build bridges to communities, muslim communities in particular, the better off i think we will be. when i do these, i always want to bring state and local law enforcement with me because they are the ones who more than the federal government have their finger on the pulse of the community. >> on the subject of bipartisanship, i've long said that the terrorists won't check our party registration before they blow us up. there are many questions and no

time so we're going to do a lightning round. the woman in the green dress, the man in the middle in the red tie, and in the back, person in glasses. right there. you. those are the three. please just ask one question, one short question. >> no problem. thank you, secretary. i'm from china central television. recently president obama released $4.1 trillion for budget for 2017, including more than 40. $6 billion for department of homeland security which is a little bit less than 2016. does it mean your department is facing less challenges in confronting terrorism? and also according to the news, isis -- sorry -- isis says is going to attack u.s. soil this year. how do you make sure to prevent that happen from intellectual level? >> that was 1 1/2 questions. >> the short answer is -- >> wait, wait, wait.

we're doing all three at once. >> i got to remember it then. >> i'll remember. it is your budget plus -- >> the short answer is we have not at all deprioritized counterterrorism or homeland security but we have to live within our budget caps and the budget agreement that was made. >> the homeland secretary is not listening to me. >> no, i'm not. >> the man in the middle. >> the richard hellman from the middle east research center. mr. secretary, could you delve into some of your results-based testing of results and achievements from all the programs you've die described and specifically how close you're getting to improving the tests like from the catastrophic tsa test on weapons coming through last june and the requirement of your predecessor to left a legal requirement that gold -- came through your

predecessor's term. how successful is our social messaging of government, culture, et cetera, of america. >> thank you very much. t katherine in the back. >> thank you to the wilson center and the aspect homeland security group. there is a new emphasis on cyber security in the budget. is there evidence that the stolen data is being used to access government systems with the intent of destroying or manipulating that data so that the government can no longer rely upon its integrity? >> you get the prize for one question. >> the answer is -- i'm not sure i can comment publicly. we are always extremely vigilant, katherine, in looking for such a thing. first question, metrics. metrics in terms of scanning,

cbp in my judgment is pretty sophisticated about how we go about scanning cargo. there is the legal mandate which i think you refer to which i've had conversations with a number of members of congress about to get to a better place. i have committed to a plan to do that. we've committed to raising the percentage of what we actually search. but we have a pretty sophisticated method for identifying high-risk cargo and applying extra examination to that at ports and as they're imported. in terms of border security, as y i mentioned in my remarks, i want to get to a better place in how we measure border security. so we have an initiative now which i hope to finish before i leave office. thank you. >> well, let me say, we're slightly over time but the subject is absolutely fascinating to many of us. at the wilson center we have

something we call cyber boot camp, and that is a class that we run for congressional staff, bipartisan, bi-cameral to teach them about cyber. we're very good at it. i want to give a shout out to meg cane which directs our digital futures prosect. i hope you all learned a lot. there will be a test in about ten minutes on everything the secretary said. i just have to say, this -- i guess -- is the last of the homeland extravaganzas by this homeland secretary. as you said, jeh, you thanked everyone else for their service. pass a personal matter and on behalf of the wilson center and on behalf of so many in the congress i have intersected all these years, i want to thank you for your service. it is extraordinary and the

department is better because of you. okay. class is dismissed.